Moonstruck
by marapozsa
Summary: And although Penelo laughs whenever Vaan tries to use a gun, Vaan is just as scared of the idea of Penelo using a spear.


**Moonstruck**

a k a n t **h a e** - h i _m e_

**Authoress' Note & Disclaimer:** Okay, I gave up on waiting for the vaan!guns chapter before posting this. (I have no self-restraint.) And I realized I really do like random titles.

Again, for SilverLocke980, who should become an official writer (or at least work for the Final Fantasy franchise) if he ever wants to put his fantastic understanding of words - those beautiful bright things we use to convey raw emotion - to use in a way that will allow generations to get a chance to worship his work. I'm not the only one who would be annoyed if he didn't become an author.

This was supposed to be more serious than AIMF...but it didn't end up that way. Honest, it wasn't supposed to end up with a spazzy Penelo. She's just cute when she's trying to murder her would-be beau, especially when she's still a midget little kid. I like spears, too, and even though I am female, I do tend to stare at Fran when she's walking. It might be my short attention span, since the same thing happens with Balthier. And I could always pin the blame on you (whoever you are)...but I suppose that's too mean.

-

The way Vaan sees it, Penelo sparkles.

(But is that because she's wearing his hand-me-down vest for good luck - it's still too big for either of them - or because she's got dirt in her hair that actually looks pretty compared to her true blonde?)

Reks claims she shines like the stars.

(Which is true when her hair is wet and she's hiding in a game of cat-and-mouse - she always picks the obvious spots, like under Filo's mattress or crouching behind the smelly pick of trash in the nearest alleyway.)

Penelo's father, who is as tall and pale as Vaan is short and sepia-colored, and the reason why Penelo has long legs to dance with at all, minus the hairy ankles that Vaan enjoys pinching, beams with pride whenever strangers tell him that his daughter is a sight to see. The smarter ones replace 'sight' with 'spectacle,' but Vaan has never bothered to ask Reks what 'spectacle' means.

(He doesn't think Reks knows. But Reks does, although he doesn't spell it right. Ever.)

And Penelo's mother has a habit of drawing her daughter while she twirls. She stops whenever she realizes Vaan is peering over her shoulder, squinting because the light is so bright on that smooth white surface (or yellow, since Penelo's mother is also a thrifty old goose who would rather eat her own tongue than let something go to waste - and she has tried, sticking it inbetween her teeth where she can nibble on it while she sketches with a piece of charcoal from last week's cooking fire).

At other times she stops because she's run out of paper or the sun is getting to her. And then Vaan will pout, drawing his lip up in one corner and down in the other. This is one of several reasons Vaan's mother jokes that she birthed a fiend and not a boy.

There are more, but Vaan's only excuse "is his own stupidity."

Despite Penelo's other such comments, for which Vaan has only glares and sharp pokes in the chest Penelo has yet to grow (she says it's coming, but only when Vaan's in a patronizing mood), Vaan prides himself on being smart enough to know that dancing isn't the only thing she can do. She can do a lot, in fact, including handstands (whereas he needs a wall to do those right), and she can hit a target eight out of ten times if Vaan doesn't try to wedgie her while she's taking aim. But as far as Vaan can tell, Penelo can't climb walls - not as good as he can, although he's always got to stretch a bit further than everyone else to reach the next foothold - and her mother's decreed her banned perpetually from cooking dinner for fear she'll burn their home down. Since Vaan's family shares the same building, Vaan thinks Penelo's mother very wise, no matter how quick she is to realize that her purse is gone.

(He got a sound telling off then, and was deprived of both Penelo's presence and her mother's cooking. Vaan agonized later over how much weight he'd gained after getting access to those lemon cookies once again.)

Penelo is given rewards for dancing the same day he's freed of his anti-cookie pledge. More presents, really, but all Vaan knows is that his face burns red and his heart green when he watches Penelo accept a new set of daggers from the boy that lives below both his family and hers. Vaan cannot remmember his name, and all he really wants to do is tackle the boy, who is a year older than him and has _at least_ - if not more - half a foot on him in his stocking feet, to the ground.

But he doesn't want to lose those lemon cookies again, so Vaan musters up some of his (quite possibly) non-existent common sense.

He'll get her a gift too.

-

The minute the spear passes from his hand to Penelo's, Vaan knows in an instant it is the wrong gift. His face doesn't fall, his lips don't curve down. The feeling he describes as sickly green is gone and was a long time ago.

In fact, he laughs...the sort of laugh that chokes men and infuriates women, even the miniature ones. And although Vaan can hardly count Penelo as a woman, he stops immediately when he realizes that Penelo is not laughing along with him, and that she can actually use the spear that is twice her height. She needs both hands to grasp the handle, however - and then Vaan faintly remembers that he stole it from a clumsy old Bangaa called Sesukk, one of the old farts who smuggles joker weed into the Clan Centurio headquarters; and that Bangaas favor huge, unwieldy weapons over lighter, more graceful ones like the daggers Penelo uses so well. But that's in his favor, so he doesn't know why he's complaining.

(This is why he can always get away from the big brutes so easily, since most Bangaas also find the need to carry weapons constantly overwhelming. Rabanastre's humid air must be a source of blundering ineloquence for Bangaas, since they almost never discard their weapons so that they can chase after him either. And as Vaan knows, Bangaas also like to carry heavy purses.)

Penelo, astonishingly, wields the spear well.

But Vaan only dares think that when she has him cornered in the sewers, kicking him in the most painful spots she can locate (and with her mother's boots on, too, the witch - she may not want kids, but what about him?) and then attempting to shove his gift (stolen, but still a gift) down his pants spearhead first.

They both come home covered in mud and drenched in soggy filth, the spear abandoned in the Overflow Cloaca where the rats can use it at a chew toy. When he's getting ready to wash all of the dirt and sewage, Vaan finds a rat skeleton in his boot. He puts it in Penelo's bedsheets on his next playdate, with Kytes and Filo and Filo's newfound gang as the main distraction, along with a few mounds of dirt and a particularly large dead spider.

(It looks like a spider, at least, but Vaan sees its leg twitch and decides to chuck it back in the sewer instead.)

That night, Vaan stays awake for a while, just to hear Penelo scream. So it comes as quite a surprise when he finds the rat skeleton back in his boot the next day. It's not his fault he's only got one pair of shoes, either. The cobbler in their neighborhood is a cheapskate and a lazy arse.

As much as Vaan would like to, he can't make shoes appear out of thin air.

(Because if he could, he'd pelt the damn cobbler with his creations until the man went mad. Or, if he were especially tempted, he could attach a pair of spiked traveler's shoes to the end of a gun...well, no, maybe a spear - oh, the irony - instead and use telekinesis on the cobbler's pretty young wife.)

Later on, Penelo's mother scolds her daughter for being so vindictive. (Never mind if Vaan deserved it.) But the worst is in for Vaan, who finds the rat skeleton in his bowl of soup the next time he eats over at Penelo's.

The word vindictive hadn't come close.


End file.
